A case of successful pacification: The 584th Bataillon du Train at Bordj de l'Agha (1956–57)

Abstract

The scale of the Algerian War led France to deploy hundreds of thousands of reservists and conscripts to the theatre from mid-1956. Many of these ‘civilians in uniform’ arrived with poor morale, and were ill-trained and unsuited to their twin missions: finding, engaging and destroying the armed Algerian nationalist bands, and providing security, confidence in France, and material and welfare improvements for the Muslim village populations. This case study shows how one ill-disciplined reservist transport battalion was given firm leadership by a celebrated, dynamic and wily Indochina veteran, Major Jean Pouget. It explores the methods Pouget used to win over the indigenous peoples living near his battalion's post at the Bordj de l'Agha, in the foothills of the Saharan Atlas Mountains, and draws out the wasted idealism and courage demonstrated by some of his officers and men.